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Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrius

His All-Holiness Patriarch Demetrius I (Greek: Πατριάρχης Δημήτριος Α', Dimitrios or Demetrios I), known to the world as Demetrios Papadopoulos of Panagiotis, was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1972 to 1991.

Demetrios Papadopoulos was born in Constantinople on September 8, 1914. His early education was at the Greek schools in Therapia. He continued his studies at the Theological School of Halki from 1931 to 1937, he was ordained a deacon following his graduation on Palm Sunday, April 25, 1937. From October 1937 to August 1938, he served as the diocese Secretary and Preacher of the Holy Metropolis of Edessa. Between May 1939 and June 1945 he served as deacon and priest in Ferikioi (Φερίκιοϊ). He was ordained to the priesthood on March 29, 1942, and continued serving the Ferikioi Church for another three years. He then served as the pastor of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Tehran, Iran, from 1945 to 1950. During this time, with the honorary approval of the Shah, he taught Ancient Greek at the University of Tehran for one year. After his stint in Tehran, he returned to Ferikioi to serve as Head of Community from 1950 to 1964.

He called the first of three Pan-Orthodox Meetings for the preparation of the Pan-Orthodox Synod at the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Chambesy, Switzerland. He accepted at the Ecumenical Patriarchate two Archbishops of Canterbury, and on November 30, 1979, PopeJohn Paul II with whom he proclaimed the establishment of the official theological dialogue between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1987, he traveled to Rome where he was received by Pope John Paul II. At a solemn ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica, the Patriarchs of East and West together recited, in Greek, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of the Church as originally expressed without the filioque.